The Sensex, which lost 121 points on Wednesday, declined another 44.67 points, or 0.28 percent, to 15,836.47, after moving between gains and losses through the session.

It touched day's low of 15,596.22 and a high of 15,908.02 as 13 of the 30-BSE index stocks rose while others fell.On similar lines, the wide-based National Stock Exchange index Nifty fell 16.90 points, or 0.35 percent to 4,746.35. It touched a low of 4,673.85 and a high of 4,768.65 points rate during the session.

Brokers said the sharply weaker rupee may hit profits of a large number of companies by making imports costly.The rupee breached tumbled 61 paise to Rs 54.32 per US dollar to record low in early trade today on sustained demand for the American currency and persistent capital outflows.

They said investors were also cautious ahead of the Reserve Bank's policy review tomorrow as the overall inflation is still high at above 9 percent, although the broad consensus is that it may not hike key rates further. RBI has raised rates 13 times since March 2010 to tame inflation.

Meanwhile, the food inflation dipped to 4.35 percent for week ended December 3 from 6.6 percent in the previous week.

Brokers said the Asian markets remained weak amid continuing uncertainty over the euro-zone debt crisis and apprehensions of global economic slowdown.

The capital goods index suffered the most, losing 1.91 percent to 8,811.57, followed by consumer durables index -- down 1.62 percent to 5,310.32. Auto index fell 1.23 percent to 8,168.23, banking index by 0.98 percent to 9,728.21 and IT index by 0.57 percent to 5,770.17.